The growing demand for food worldwide has helped push the price of many
commodities to record levels. Besides demand, prices are influenced by other
factors such as weather patterns and pollutants that can affect crop yields. At
the University of Illinois in Urbana, researchers are studying the effects
pollutants have on crop growth. As VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, the researchers
say they can accurately predict future carbon levels in the atmosphere and in
the world's farm fields.
It's planting season for corn and soybeans in the United States. For Amy
Betzelberger, the time of year is familiar.
Amy grew up on a farm near a small town in Illinois a few hours away from this
field. Growing crops is a family tradition.
"We've lived on that same farm for over 150 years, so I actually grew up, you
know, playing in the soybeans, playing the pasture, and learned at a very early
age not to go out in the cornfield once it's past your head," Betzelberger said.
It's early in the planting season. It will be some time before the corn is over
Amy's head.
"We are located right in the center of the U.S. corn belt,” Ort explains. “The
Midwest is responsible for growing about 40 percent of the maize and soybean
that's produced throughout the world. You may know that maize is the most
important food crop in the world, and soybean is the most important oilseed crop
in the world."
The scientists here say these fields are an ideal place to conduct studies on
how greenhouse gases affect crop growth - and how much, or how little, the world
food supply will be affected by climate change.
Carbon dioxide gas is released from the tubes surrounding the corn plants and,
inside this ring, it wafts over the crop at a level environmental scientists
predict for the year 2050.
Studies show elevated carbon dioxide, a gas attributed to global warming, helps
grow plants larger and in greenhouses it makes plants look more beautiful.
"What we didn't know is that it also makes the plants more delicious to
herbivorous insects, which might be a problem in the future if there's more bugs
eating our crops," Betzelberger said.
Then there's the issue of elevated ozone, which when released in the rings
appeared to lower soybean yields by 20 percent due to ozone pollution.
The future of corn and soybean production is a great concern to countries
struggling with record food prices, caused in part by increased demand and
decreased supply. Millions of the world's poorest people are on the brink of
starvation.
Ort says, "We began seeing even five and six years ago that world grain reserves
were in dangerously low levels and those were harbingers of beginning to wonder
if there is a bad year globally in production, how is that going to affect world
food supplies and we're beginning to see that play out," he said.
In the short-term, SOYFACE will have no impact on food prices.
But over the long term, scientists say this research and related genetic
engineering might produce varieties that are more resistant to increased carbon
and ozone levels, and to plant-eating bugs. And that could help prevent future
price spikes and shortages.
For Amy Betzelberger, it's about carrying on a family tradition that has
survived war, drought, flooding, and the Great Depression. "If people are aware
of these things, there will be more push for tax dollars or more private
companies to fund this sort of thing," Betzelberger said.
Betzelberger says she hopes families like hers will have confidence that when
they plant a crop, it will grow, even in an era of climate change.